Developing a Global Media Strategy and Point of View with Rita Kakati-Shah

Episode 36 – Global Media Strategy & Point of View with Rita Kakati-Shah – Podcast Transcript

SPEAKERS

Lexie Smith, Rita Kakati-Shah

Lexie Smith  

Rita Kakati-Shah is an award-winning, gender, diversity, inclusion and career strategist, best-selling author, TV show host, speaker and advisor to Fortune 500 companies, and the Founder and CEO of Uma, an international strategy, coaching and training platform that empowers confidence, inspires success and builds leadership and resilience in women and minorities. She is also a keynote speaker and guest lecturer at academic institutions and global policy forums such as UNESCO (Paris), European Parliament (Brussels), Woman Who Matters (Moscow), and more spanning across the globe.  Rita’s expertise has been featured in outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, CBS News, Fox News, Entrepreneur Magazine, Fast Company, I heart radio and many many more. Through her passion, perseverance and sheer determination, Rita has impacted thousands of women and girls’ lives around the world. A global citizen and undeniably newsworthy founder, in today’s episode Rita and I dive into the global media landscape, we talk about the importance of having a point of view, and how one can effectively go about developing such, her journey with PR, speaking, and beyond. Her beverage preferences are as diverse as her skill sets, and I’ll stop talking now so you can officially get to know more about and learn from this phenomenal leader and human being.

So once upon a time I published around up on medium.com called ‘How to feel empowered as a female entrepreneur.’ Don’t worry, I will link to the article in the show notes. And that is actually where Rita was first put on my radar because I featured her advice in the piece. Flash forward more than a year later, and I heard her again on my friend’s show, The Wow Series Podcast Shout Out, and I knew I had to have her on. Thankfully, read it blind because she is here with us today. Rita, welcome. I’m honored to be hosting you here today on the show. When I look through and read your bio, you’re basically Wonder Woman, so when you’re not busy changing and saving the world, let’s start with what do you like to do outside of work for fun?

Rita Kakati-Shah   

Oh, Lexie, you’re so kind. And thank you for having me on the show. It’s been such a pleasure to reconnect after over a year, as you mentioned, fine for me. I mean, we’re in a pandemic time right now. We sort of work and personal life sort of merged into one. So at the moment, I love that I’m a really social person. So I just love connecting with my friends, going out with my kids and my family rather than staying in. So that’s sort of it right now. I’m going to be traveling again in a couple of weeks. So I’m really excited about that.

Lexie Smith

Okay, so were you a fabulous accent, Where are you from? Where do you live now? And where are you going to be traveling?

Rita Kakati-Shah

So I’m born and bred Londoner, and I will actually be going to London in a few weeks. And via Chicago, so I’ll be going to Chicago first and then London. And I’m actually in New York City at the moment.

Lexie Smith  

Amazing, I love all of those places. So is New York City, homebase?

Rita Kakati-Shah

New York City’s home I moved to after I got married and settled here. So yeah.

Lexie Smith   

Amazing. So we need to go into your career, because you do like I said, a million things. Let me just catch everyone up to speed, award winning gender diversity, inclusion and career strategist, best selling author, TV show host speaker and advisor and the founder and CEO of Uma. So let’s start with which of those came first, like, what was the journey? How did we get to this point of doing all these amazing things?

Rita Kakati-Shah   

When I was a little bit of a mishmash, to be honest, I mean, I started my career in the UK in finance. So we’re talking over 2021 years ago, now, when I started my career there. And I was one of very, very few women on the equities trading floor of an investment bank, Goldman Sachs International. So just by virtue of being one of the few women being one of the very few people of color at the time, I got into diversity, inclusion, energy shift from then. And this is before that was even a buzzword. It was before it was even a thing. It just made me think, Well, I know there’s other women here, I want to meet them, I want to do what they do professionally. And why are all the people of Indian origin in tech, rather than around the firm? I’m just exaggerating here to give you the point. But so that’s really how I got into it, and how sort of I got into sort of, you know, bringing people together, making sure they felt that sense of belonging and whatnot. So this was back in the early 2000s. And since then, I’ve always been in that space. And I’ve transitioned careers, I spent a good decade in finance, and I transitioned into the pharmaceutical industry. And that took me around the world, I was in business development. And then I came here to New York, and settled after I got married. And I have two small children who are now six and eight. And it’s amazing how fast time flies actually. So after settling here, and then realizing and I took about three or four years off to raise them, I’ve got to tell you, Lexi, out of all the jobs I’ve ever done, by far, the most challenging was being a full time parent, to my both children, you know, you’re not just working 24 seven, you cannot take a sick day, always on call, you always have to be with it. And for me, that taught me a lot, not just in terms of Wow, you how much patience and resilience you got to have and love for little people that can’t speak at some point, you know, but it really exercises skills like communications, negotiation skills, professional skills, which I didn’t know about. So I used to joke with my friends that you know, if you can negotiate with a toddler, or later in life in an adolescent, take that conviction to your next interview, or you can have it in and say me communications, you know, I thought communications, really I could string together a PowerPoint and I’d be comfortable speaking on stage to people. But I learned so much more. You know, for me communications became listening and empathy being a really big part of that. And having children taught me that, you know, I’m communicating with little creatures that can’t yet talk to me, and I’m understanding what they’re saying. They have a pandemic puppy now as well, and the same thing, this little, little little pup shouldn’t communicate, he can’t talk, he will never be able to talk. But we’ve got to understand his cues and the signs. It’s very emotional. So that all brought together the work that I do my sort of thought process on, you know, empowering women and other minority groups, because I found that, you know, when I was out of the paid workforce, and I was thinking of getting back in, a lot of employers out there, would see that proverbial gap on my resume has been a witness, they will see it as being that it was a quitter. I’m not ambitious anymore. So a large part of that was just in the confidence and just having that self belief, and knowing that these skills you’ve picked up are actual professional skills. So I sort of married that altogether, my DEI, my diversity, equity, inclusion experience, my experiences have just been so much better than other professional skills. And seeing there were so many women and other minorities out there that were struggling to get back in the workforce that was struggling to make it through that glass ceiling. I thought, How can I help them? And then came over. And then like, for her, the goddess of go getting. Because she is a mother, she’s a daughter, she’s a sibling, she’s a wife, she is a Hindu goddess. And she really depicts confidence, determination and courage.

Lexie Smith    

Like so many things first, can I just say, why haven’t we? Or maybe someone in the world can normalize or make it a thing? Or we can put mother on someone’s resume? Why can’t that be? That is the hardest job any human will ever have. Yet, you say you have this proverbial gap. No, he just had a different title, which by the way, is always going to be your title forevermore and is never going away. So okay, so many thoughts there. But um, Uma love what it stands for? What is it? What are you? What are you specifically offering the marketplace with Uma?

Rita Kakati-Shah

So it’s, it’s twofold. Really, the first one is building up confidence, leadership and resilience in women and minorities. And we do that through coaching and mentoring. And then the other part of that is actually working with corporations with organizations to really help them as a strategic interface for diversity, equity inclusion. So there could be corporate training involved, there could be some sort of strategic consulting involved, there could be a lot of coaching involved there as well.

Lexie Smith

Amazing. So I was on Uma’s website and prepared for the show, and poked around and I made my way on to the publicity page. And holy cow, I think you have one of the longest air quotes, as seen in ages or lists that I’ve ever seen. So just for everyone listening, meaning she’s been on so many podcasts in so many different outlets. And we’ll dive into that. But I’m curious, has all this exposure, public third party coverage banned by happenstance? Or is this something that you’ve strategically prioritized, as part of your thought leadership and overall business strategy?

Rita Kakati-Shah  

Yeah, that’s a really great question. So Uma is coming up to five years. In September, we’ll be five years old. And when I first started, we had to ask and see what was out there. And hey, you know, founders, there was another publicity on something or anyone who wanted to cover small businesses, we’d have to reach out to them. But then, as the years and weeks and months went apart, I would say after a good 18 months of being around, we just started getting contacted, you know, via LinkedIn. And we’ve actually got our own, you know, PR team now, because of the fact that we’re getting inquiries. So I think it’s just one of those things that once you’re out there, once you’ve been at events, and I didn’t, you know, I’ve always done a lot of speaking, but we did prepare them in person. Now we’re doing them online. And I think people just like to see your voice. And if you have a strong message, and you are almost preaching, you are actually practicing what you preach, for me, it’s confidence. And if people see that, I’m actually doing that. And I’m confident in myself, it really helps, I think, to pass on that message. I see a lot of examples where people come to me now and say, Well, hey, Rita, how do you get this piece? Or that bit of publicity? or How did the Wall Street Journal pick you up? And you’re not. I still don’t know how to be honest. But I think it’s almost like when somebody hears that you’ve done a good job for somebody or you’ve had a good coaching client or good corporate client. It’s word of mouth. And in this day and age, it’s always been word of mouth. It’s networking in different ways. Pr is networking. It’s communication. And it’s all about, you know, what people’s perception of you is. So I think to your point, you know, initially it was sort of time initially when we first started five years ago, but then it sort of became, we got reproach and now it is a bit more strategic. There are pieces and podcasts and things that we have to turn down. Sometimes just because of how busy we are and what messaging we’re trying to portray as well.

Lexie Smith

Well, I’m honored I made the cut. So thank you. I appreciate that. When you first started out, were you kind of on the frontlines going after these activities? Or did you already have a kind of a wing woman, a wing man, someone a partner in crime, or those early days before it? Were they coming to you? What was that process like?

Rita Kakati-Shah

It was me I was, you know, when I first started Uma, my first ever actual company that I started, it realized that you had to wear so many different hats. I thought, you know what, I went and bought myself a laptop for the first time, switched it on, I think, Okay, great. Where’s my email? Okay, there’s a domain name or host as Oh, I have to do all of that. Okay, let me just pick up the phone and call GoDaddy or whoever. Because I didn’t realize these things. I was sort of trialing it out, I had a passion, I knew I wanted to fix a problem that I knew was there, that I realized there’s a techie aspect to it, I’d worked in big corporates, until this point, you go into the office, everything is set up, your infrastructure is set up, I was now the chief technical officer, and the CEO, and the hiring and firing person and the HR person and the finance person, all in one. So I was having to do a lot. And then the PR part was just, you know, just going initially to other friends, events and activities, and telling them a little bit of what I was doing. And then you know, having friends in the industry and just asking them, Hey, this is what I’m doing. I’d love to help you out. So initially, when you’re getting started, the biggest thing is just getting those testimonials, getting those positive test cases and getting people to actually use your services to say what is it like, because that is then how you can even work out what your pricing is, I didn’t know how to price my services five years ago, it was trial and error. You can Google other similar sorts of different coaches or mentoring or events or, you know, corporate sort of structures out there. But unless you’ve done it unless you’ve worked with companies and worked with clients in which you’ve done the role that you’re saying you’re an expert at. That’s the only way you can kind of bring it up. And then that happened, and somebody told them and then the PR started coming in. I go to events, that would be somebody there that happened to be the I don’t know, the editor of, you know, the family lifestyle unit of the New York Times, whatever. And then you just get chatting and you don’t realize that until you’ve finished the second cocktail, and then you talk about oh, by the way, what do you do? And I like those the best because that’s really natural networking. It’s relationship building. It’s not forced.

Lexie Smith

Yeah, absolutely.

Rita Kakati-Shah 

Like, you know, for me, it’s been the most powerful time.

Lexie Smith  

Thank you for breaking that down and giving us a peek behind the curtain. I think what you experience is not necessarily uncommon for new entrepreneurs, right? Wearing all the hats. And I often when people come to me, and I’m educating them on all the different market options for PR like to call myself a matchmaker, maybe doing it yourself isn’t the right choice. Maybe it’s a firm. But inevitably, I do think that a founder does start by doing their own PR, and I’m curious. So this will turn into a question. But I think that they then have a lot more understanding and appreciation when they reach a point where they can either afford or they choose to bring on a team or outsource. Do you think having been in the weeds or on the ground level kind of at the beginning has given you that perspective now?

Rita Kakati-Shah 

I think so. I mean, there would have been two ways of doing it just initially, hiring a PR team straight away, is it Hey, make it then there are so many companies that do that. We decided not to do that. Mine was more like, Okay, I’m trying to just almost figure out what angle I want to take. I know there is something here, we know that it could really help people. And that’s what it was to start with. And I think being there and telling your story because that’s what it is, you know, it’s about telling your story. See who’s listening, who resonates, how many shares and likes are there because it gives you a little bit of Okay, is this the right target audience? And then you’re building it up. To start with, and you don’t always know that, you know, my first thing to folks is get together that first business plan of yours, and it’s constantly evolving. Because if you don’t, you don’t even know where your journey is going. And it’s all part of that elevator pitch when people kind of talk to you as you found it. Okay, well, where do you see yourself going? What are you going to do with this? You can’t answer that question unless you’ve done that. You know? And initially getting publicity, you’re going to get asked that question, so you kind of have to know the answer.

Lexie Smith   

Yep, I cannot agree more. And everyone who’s intimately knows my stance on this and those who listen to the show, but kind of on that different note. Back to this massive long press, you know, accolades list, you’ve done podcasts. You have a YouTube show. You’ve been on TV, you’ve contributed as a source to digital outlets. You’ve really dabbled across the board, in terms of what types of media platforms a founder can be featured on. So generally speaking, in your experience, which form of media do you find is the most successful or drives the most value or results for you and your business?

Rita Kakati-Shah 

Yeah, that’s a great question. So one thing about Uma is that we very much see it as being a very global platform. It’s headquartered in New York City. But you know, we have an LA, San Francisco outlook, we have a Toronto one. We’re in India, now we’re in the UK. We went to Singapore, in Australia, we’ve got, you know, things going on in Moscow and in Zambia, as well. And that’s one of the reasons there is so much publicity out there as well, because the public part of it is not just US bases, it’s not just UK or India bases everywhere. And different cultures, different communities value PR differently. In a certain age, for example, they may not care so much about podcasts, but they love TV over there. Yeah. And then, in the UK, they really want to see, okay, what big media have you been? And I want to see something in the times, obviously, I’m Guardian, I want to see something Oh, bought a journal, you know, things like that. So it’s more like printed interfaces. And I think I’ve learned that on the journey as well as thinking, Okay, if you have that narrow lens, it depends what you’re who your audience is. So I think you’ve got to figure out who that target audience is. How are you trying to help them? My background is very diverse, equity and inclusion. Part of it is because I’ve traveled so much I love different cultures. I see myself as a global citizen. Yes, I was born in the UK. Yes, I have Assamese heritage. Yes, I live in New York. But when people ask me where I’m from, I’m from everywhere. In a way, I’ve been to so many countries, I’ve sampled so many different cultures. And this is a platform that helps everyone. You know, I see Uma being a platform for change makers, policymakers. So you’re going to see on there some media that is not just sort of mainstream that targets companies and individuals, but it targets devout governments and policymakers too. So it really really depends on the area and thought leadership as well.

Lexie Smith

Okay, I just had like a wow moment when you were speaking because so often in public relations, and in my own practice, and I’ll call myself out here, I talked about reaching your target audience, but I haven’t really thought recently anyways, about location based preferences, right, like people in India consuming x type of media, whereas those in the US market might consume y. So holy, moly, thank you for that. I’m curious if you like it, let’s I guess knowing these podcasts, listenership when we narrow into the US, what do you typically find US consumers connecting more to? Are you seeing them? You know, reading the articles more and listening to podcasts? Do you think they’re kind of all of equal value? What have you seen?

Rita Kakati-Shah

Yeah, so I think podcasts are interesting one. I mean, I love podcasts myself. And I think, when it was pre pandemic, and people weren’t commuting, podcasts were great, because you can just plug in, you could zone out, and you can get some really sort of feel good educational learning, people are still doing that, I think so I think podcast is something that will go digital magazines are great. You know, again, I go back to the pandemic, when people are more finicky about touching physical newspapers or touching physical magazines. When you get the online version of it, you know, it’s quicker, you can save it, you can share it on social with your family, and friends, you can do so much more with it. So I always tell people, you know, digital, the digital platforms like you know, that you can share something really, really powerful as well. So I think podcasts are great digital things, you know, and nothing beats your actual newspapers or your actual sort of no media and TV as well. So if somebody calls you to give your opinion on a new show, you know, again, it depends on what it is. But you have to get your pitch perfect for that. So I think those are really effective. It depends on the audience and who’s listening. And what you’re trying to do it for and how you prepare, is how you come across. And that can make or break whether you get invited back or not.

Lexie Smith

Right. And so you have your own show on YouTube. I’m curious about the thought process, knowing you have a global audience, what made you choose that platform and that form of media?

Rita Kakati-Shah 

So yes, I actually hosted my show, which is actually produced by money TV International, which is like a global, South Asian on TV channel. So they have their own TV channel. They also have the yaak TV platform, which is huge all over Asia. We also share it on our YouTube as well. So that’s like the third outlet that we share it on. And that came out of a COVID project. Actually, I was speaking to the CEO of the company and just about you know, there was so many talk shows out there platforms out there that really have voices and empower women from different backgrounds, and we thought, how many tortures are actually specifically inspiring and empowering south Asian women, and we couldn’t even put one hand up in terms of that. And I think that was the issue we thought there were so many women out there, there’s so many people that listen to that phrase, you’ve got to see it to be it. But who can they see? So the image show was really born out of that. And it was really highlighting the stories of other kinds of South Asian role models that, in my view, at least, have broken that glass ceiling in some shape, or form. And they’re making it but there’s a real real story. So if you’ve had a chance to watch it, but they’re going into actual stories about challenges, what they’ve done, because even real folks are not like, quite often when we see people that on TV or in the media, you put them on a pedestal, you think great, I want to be them and whatnot. But oh, that’s not really me. It’s a bit of a different situation. So the whole point of this show is to break down those barriers that these are real people. It’s hard work, it’s resilience. What made or break them if they didn’t give up. Or something happened, really bad happened at some point, but they pivoted and looked at what they’ve done.

Lexie Smith  

Everything out of your mouth is inspirational, I truly mean that. That means that I do we’ve kind of touched on gender diversity and inclusion a fair amount. And you mentioned that and it’s something that I very much caught on to that. Yes, you’ve been speaking on this topic and living and breathing this topic before it made, you know, air quotes, trendy headlines, or came these buzzwords. So I have kind of a big question. But first, a little bit of context. The listeners of the show range from journalists, to publicists, to entrepreneurs, and thought leaders. So knowing that, when we think about joining or contributing to topics surrounding gender diversity and inclusion at a public level, do you have any tips or advice on how listeners can navigate such efficiently and productively?

Rita Kakati-Shah

So getting involved in topics specifically on what they care about, I always say, if you, it depends who the listener is, if you’re the one who’s writing about it, then you want to find something that you think ultimately people are going to read. But it’s on key, it’s new, it’s a novel idea. If you’re the one contributing to the topic, then you gotta you gotta know your stuff. But you have to have a view. I always say that if you don’t have a view, it’s not really read worthy. Is it really even worth sharing? You can have a couple of different views, that’s fine. But you’ve got to go in with an opinion. Yes, you can be diplomatic and how you respond to things and have won both ways. But you got to have a view and why you’re doing it. Because that’s the only way you can be sort of, I guess, branded as the person who talks about gender equality or something else.

Lexie Smith

So from my point of view, how do you go about it? Or do you have any, if someone is trying to develop a point of view, right, they’re naturally born with one or they haven’t traveled the world like you have, where would be a low barrier to entry place to start to educate themselves, to be able to develop, you know, their own unique point of view.

Rita Kakati-Shah

Oh, absolutely. And also, when I say point of view, it’s also based on understanding and being quite educated in having that point of view quite often. And because I’m always getting into debates, and I love them, because it has that kind of, you know, back and forth. But quite often you see somebody you know, you hear somebody talking about one point of view. But that’s without even understanding and listening, or we’ve been aware that there was another side of the story. So I would say, the best position to be in so if someone hasn’t yet developed that point of view, it’s a blessing in disguise, because it gives you the platform to be completely clean slate, you’re getting your information from books from the media. Now remember, when you’re going into the media, it’s usually presented even though it’s not supposed to be an opinion piece, a lot of news is an opinion piece these days. So be sure to look at an opinion piece that is on another end of the spectrum. Try to see what is out there, how’d you feel about it? Think of examples of how that has affected your life. Do you know a family member? Do you know a friend? Do you know someone who has a pen pal in a different country? Or did you read something that you might think oh, I’ve read about that, you know. How can you put yourself in their shoes to develop the understanding of the different points of view? And that’s a really, really good skill to have. And then from that you can kind of think, Okay, how does it affect you personally? What do you think? What would you do to change something about that? And that’s where your viewpoint comes across.

Lexie Smith  

Amazing advice yet again, I will add to everyone listening, you know, something that I talk about a lot as a PR to do is Daily News monitoring. And I think to tie this back to what you just said, Rita, something I make sure to do, and here’s a little polite shove, if you aren’t currently doing this, don’t just consume from one source, right? If you’re, you know, it’d be fascinating sometimes to pull up the same topic in two different extreme magazines to see how they’re covered. COVID-19 is a phenomenal example of that you turn on Fox News versus a different channel that it’s going to be talked about a little bit differently. So consuming both, you know, from a place of just listening to hearing the other side, I think is really powerful and important, as well as we develop empathy and eventually our own educated point of view. So, thank you for sharing that. I have one more question before we begin to wrap things up. And I’m going to read this, I pulled this directly from your bio. So it says, Rita is also a regularly invited speaker and guest lecturer at various academic institutions, multinational corporations and global policy forums. So you’ve spoken on some tremendously powerful, big stages, have these opportunities come about kind of, as you were mentioning earlier, because you’ve just been organically networking and you’re in the right room? or How have you been able to step on to such profound stages to speak?

Rita Kakati-Shah  

Yeah, that’s a really great question. So we start with the academic part first. With academics I went to an alumni event. So I went to King’s College London, and I was invited to the King’s College London networking event in LA. And through that I was invited to a friend who went to Kings, which was also part of the Trojan USC, University of Southern California network over there. As a last minute panelist, Hey, would you want to do this? I said, Yeah, sure. Why not? I’m here anyway, kind of thing. Somebody in that audience happened to be in one of the other schools somewhere else somewhere else. And it kind of happens like that, who’s in the audience, for this person, or this person that wanted to get the introductions. I’ve always been sort of somebody that’s, you know, enjoy public speaking anyway, but always been on the teaching sort of educating fund kind of showing people the different spectrums and assets. So when I was invited, initially, as guest lecturer for USC, the meat just came naturally. I love spending time with children and youth and high schoolers, it was something that was so natural. So therefore, university students were the next sort of natural part of that, you know, and in the UK, I’m a member of speaker speakers for schools. So similarly, I was invited to join that platform, again, how that happened. I’m not sure who knows who will be able to do that. But that was something that came naturally from different platforms. You know, there was somebody who was involved with the United Nations, and I was invited to UNESCO. And I was invited to European Parliament, you know, so it was just somebody that was there, I guess, some of his workplace at the right time. But I think a point I made earlier is that what you say has to be relevant. And somebody has to be in the room, they think, Oh, I know, that was really great, what you said, I’m going to follow up, and you keep on that radar. So that’s sort of how that happened. Now, mostly, it’s virtual, which means I can actually be in more places than one in a couple of days. There was actually a couple of months ago, a few different conferences, one in Moscow, one in Mumbai, and one in Zambia. And I remember I had to beat this in person, I could probably fit two of them out at the other end of the week. But I managed to do three in a day. Because of who we are, everything’s virtual right now. So it’s just things like that, the sort of the audiences and who you think and also, who I’m speaking to you, I’m good to think of losing my audience, I’ve got to research it really well. If I’m speaking to any of these, and I’m just giving canned speeches. No one’s gonna invite me back. It’s not gonna be relevant. I just think, Okay, what is the age group? What are their viewpoints? And what is the reason I’m speaking to them? And have to curate, curate, curate for every single audience. So yes, it might look like yes, I’m just going around doing this. But it takes a lot of work to be able to do that. And these keynotes, it’s not just you can’t pull them out. It’s a lot of work that goes into those.

Lexie Smith   

Thank you for being candid and sharing all of that I do find it very helpful to hear that it wasn’t a step by step roadmap, easy to do list, so many people come to, to me to peer firms to mentors, and they go tell me exactly what I need to do to get here by tomorrow. And that’s just not the reality of how it often works out, you know, and people make it to the stage as you write, it’s about showing up time and time again, blowing it out of the water being relevant. Thank you for saying the word relevance, huge, huge factor in PR and, and really having a strong point of view and letting that speak for itself. So I think that’s beautiful to hear and important for everyone. For everyone listening. I do have one more kind of wrap up question before we tell everyone where they can find about you and all the things you do because we have barely scratched the surface. I’m like looking at the time, like I didn’t even get to have my questions. But a lot. This one is very important to this show. So we’ve been talking about pitching. Now I need to ask what we can find you sippin so, what is your favorite beverage alcoholic or non alcoholic? Of course.

Rita Kakati-Shah    

So it depends on the time of day and where I am in the world. So genuinely first thing in the morning, I love sipping a cup of tea, you know, coming from Assamese heritage coming from the UK, big tea drinkers, so yeah, that’s one thing a cup of Assam tea to wake me up in the morning. And then you know, and then there’s a bit of a sometimes of sundown pins cup gin and tonic, sort of me to evening depending on where I am, you know, feeling relaxed with friends, and then maybe a glass of vino in the evening or not, you know, I drink a little water during the day as well. So it really depends on where I am and what mood I’m in as well.

Lexie Smith

Amazingly diverse just like your travels just like your background. I agree. I’m a time of day, a meal, a mood, the weather. There’s a lot of factors that go into my beverage choice circumstantial, I’d say yes, yes. Periscope, though I haven’t had one of those in a minute. So I actually just wrote that down as a fun new cocktail to type in making my husband make me fun cocktails. I mean, the world is opening up right now. But in lieu of not being able to go out as much I’ve been saying, hey, bartender, so is his list. Last question I have for you really is just where can people go to learn more about you, about Uma, about your show, about all the amazing things that you do.

Rita Kakati-Shah  

So I mean, I have a personal LinkedIn. So you can just find me at my company’s website which is http://www.be boldbeuma.com, our handles are all at Be bold, be Uma, our YouTube as well as youtube.com forward slash C and then be bold be Uma, so that sort of features everywhere. But yeah, just feel free to reach out for any questions or comments. I love sort of, you know, hearing from people. I’m a big social networker, so yeah.

Lexie Smith  

And don’t worry everyone we will put per usual all of the links in the show notes, so don’t worry if you didn’t didn’t catch that. Rita, thank you so much for taking the time. I’m honored that you came on the show today and that we made the cut and I just want to wish you a fabulous rest of your day.

Rita Kakati-Shah

Lexie, thank you so much again for having me on the show. It’s been such a pleasure.